Here’s the nitty gritty, I received a free entry to the Big 5k from Conquer Endurance Group in exchange for posting a photo on Instagram. That being said as usual, all thoughts & opinions are my own.
As you probably are already aware, Sean & I have run LA Marathon many times, but this was the first time we have done the Big 5 5k the day before.
We drove up to stay with Sean’s sister the night before after work. We had a pretty quick trip considering it was Friday night and a beautiful sunset. This was also our first long(ish) trip with Sean’s new electric car, we did really good but would need to get it charged after the race.
Saturday morning, we got up pretty early, I think we got up around 5:40am. We were in Manhattan Beach so it would take about 30 minutes to get to Dodger Stadium.
I think we left around 6:15/20a which was good because it’s not easy to get in and out of the stadium. We got there early enough that we didn’t have to wait too long to get in. We got parked, got our bibs & shirts.
There were a few fun photo ops. I got my photo with Dumbo & the finish line. Unfortunately I was still in my warm-up gear but it’s all good.
We used the port-o-potties and then when back to the car to drop off our gear. I wore a new to me Lululemon style shirt called the Breeze Bay short sleeve. It had all the holes in it that are so popular these days on the trails :). It matched a pair of shorts from last years SeaWheeze and was super cute. I know they say don’t wear anything new on race day, but I’m at a point where I do, plus I’ve been wearing Lululemon for years, how different could it be ;).
Anyways back to the race. We ran into some friends before heading into the corrals.
We haven’t run a 5k since Carlsbad 5000 last year. I always forget how low key 5ks are. Plus I wasn’t planning to run fast so I had no pressure.
When I was told about this race, I was told, it’s kind of hilly so I was expecting a lot of hills. There were some but it wasn’t as hilly as I was expecting so that was a plus. I pretty much just ran/walked. I had to stop to get water around the 1.5 mile mark & take my pill, I’ve been really good at taking my thyroid meds at about the same time every day & I didn’t want to forget so I took it mid race.
We got a nice downhill and then we climbed back up for the start of the final mile. It was really funny, I heard this guy next to me say what I thought was Jenny we are on the 3rd mile, I turned around as was like how did you know my name, turns out I’m apparently bad at hearing because he said Jay, not Jenny, but it was funny and kept me amused as I climbed the hill!
It didn’t take long after that until we hit the finish and I managed to get in just under 30 minutes. Which was fantastic to me, my legs were definitely not feeling it the first mile so it took a little bit for them to warm up before I felt relatively decent.
We got a cute medal and then Sean & I headed over to our hotel, we needed to get some breakfast, get his car charged and then hit up the expo before meeting our Altra rep for lunch. We had a busy day!
All in all if I had the opportunity to run the race again, I would. It was pretty low key and they had nice swag. It is a little pricey for a 5k at $50 a person which is why we probably one of the reasons we haven’t done it but it was nice to get the shake-out run out of the way early.
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